by Ruth Morgan
‘Bet you weren’t expecting that!’ Halley laughed.
I eventually managed to squeeze a few words out. ‘Are you sure we can do this?’
He smiled. ‘We’re doing it.’
The amphibical certainly seemed responsive to the gentle movements he was making with a single crooked finger. It slipped through the water without protest as though relieved to have returned to its natural element. ‘Now, let’s see how many creatures we can spot down here.’
I tried to question him about the class four, which had been decommissioned for some time, but he came back at me with the same assurances. These larger vehicles were designed to cope with submersion and ours was almost identical to the one in which he’d explored the ocean around Mumbai. After a while I shut up and concentrated on what I could see.
We’d experienced a couple of foggy mornings on Earth and being in the depths of the sea was a bit like that, with objects appearing without warning. A gentle glow descended from the surface some distance above us, but the lights at the front of the ship were the biggest help. Great, waving ribbons of brown seaweed loomed up in front of us, and soon we began to spot creatures too. Fish of all different shapes, sizes and colours swam past. Sometimes the fish swam in shoals which put me in mind of the metamansk, chopping and changing direction with all the speed, grace and intelligence of a single creature. We negotiated our way through an eerie forest of translucent jellyfish with enormous, dangling tentacles, then caught up with a pod of dolphins and began to follow on their tails until they succeeded in losing us. I had no idea how far out from land we were and although it was exciting to be there and it had certainly taken my mind off anything else, I was still nervous and after a while I managed to persuade Halley we should head back to shallower waters.
Popping back out at the surface, I was relieved to see land, but after a few moments of drifting along, we ducked back under and headed along the coast, keeping west and just below the surface of the water where the amphibical performed best. In the distance we could see a reef approaching and Halley slowed the craft right down to allow us to explore. We rounded a small hill of rocks and soft-bodied corals. What I had taken to be part of the hill, covered in waving fronds, suddenly blanched and the arms of a small octopus unfurled before us. The octopus was clearly frightened and it shot away, landing on the seabed where it curled up and turned into what looked like a brown stone.
It was a whole new amazingly colourful world to explore. The reef was home to such an abundance of life, as though this was where the party had been happening all along. We saw brightly coloured anemones and spiny starfish and great shoals of wrasse; curiously fringed cuttlefish which I discovered on my tile was another cephalopod and relative of the nautilus, so relative of the extinct ammonite. All around we found creatures expertly hiding themselves from their enemies. From a fissure between rocks, a large wide-eyed fish the exact same colour and texture as the rock itself poked out its head, probably on the hunt. I wondered if it ever left its fissure. Soon I was wiping tears from my eyes; this was so like my poetical dreams of Silurian seas, except it was far, far better. Halley was right: this had to be seen, it had to be lived and right then I felt as if we could do anything together, the two of us. I wanted to believe it so much, to believe in him again, because then I wouldn’t be on my own. But could I ever forgive him? Could I forget what he’d done?
We couldn’t stop pointing things out to each other excitedly. Halley steered with extreme care and we kept our distance from the reef; we could have damaged it or it could have damaged us if we strayed too close. In the shallows, the roof of the amphibical came right out of the water again and we could see how far we were from land. I didn’t want to think about going back home, I wanted to stay there forever.
We were about to dive again when we hit and rebounded off something in the water, something the class four’s sonar clearly hadn’t picked up.
‘Damn!’ said Halley. He tried to reverse the craft but failed. ‘It’s caught on something.’ The more he tried to back away, the more the engine strained, but whatever we were caught on, it was holding us tight. Each time we pulled a little away from it, only to smack back into it again.
‘You’d better stop,’ I said. ‘This isn’t working.’
‘I could use the freezing mechanism but we’re too close, we’d be caught up in the explosion.’ He shut off the engine. We bobbed up and down, at least the rear of the craft did, the front was held firm.
‘I’ll have to take a look,’ he said. He bit his lip and cursed. There didn’t seem any other option so he opened the roof and climbed out. We both put our hoods and visors on. On his hands and knees, he edged to the front of the vehicle. It dipped lower in the water. I saw him reach down and struggle with something below the surface, fighting to keep his balance. His whole stance showed his frustration, and he stopped from time to time for a rest before trying again. He clambered off the vehicle on to what I guessed was a rock just beneath the surface. He grabbed hold of the front of the vehicle and heaved, but whatever he was trying to do wasn’t working either.
‘Nisien’s machine’s caught on a rock and I’m scared of damaging it,’ he yelled.
I had a vision of Nisien’s volcanic outrage if he heard his beloved prototype Barroblaster had been wrecked.
‘I’ll get out to make it lighter,’ I shouted and copied him, edging along the slippery front of the craft on my hands and knees. I splashed into the water on top of a rocky shelf; we were lucky not to have smashed into it. When Halley got his head out of the way, I could see the problem: a spike of rock had impaled itself through the gap between the chassis and the Barroblaster casing. Between us we attempted to lift the front of the craft but it wouldn’t budge. We sat back on our knees, panting.
‘There’s an obvious design flaw,’ said Halley. ‘The gap there. We’ll have to tell him. If we ever go back, that is.’
My heart sank. If we ever go back? Of course we would have to go back. The truth was crushing.
‘There could be something inside the amphibical we can use to break the rock spike,’ I said to the back of his head. We both knew that using our sauroters was out of the question, again because of the likely damage to the Barroblaster.
I crawled back to the cabin and searched inside. Any kit it contained was sparse and rudimentary by the standards of more modern craft and for the first time I noticed the lack of normal emergency equipment, obviously because no one expected this particular amphibical to be driven far beyond the Base compound, let alone as far as we’d gone that morning. Diving into the sea had been beyond reckless, particularly if the sonar was faulty. Nevertheless, my heart ached for everything I had seen and I wanted so much to keep faith with that afternoon’s dream. If only we didn’t have to return to Base.
I heard Halley chipping away at the rock with something and guessed he must have found a tool in his utility belt, or a stone from the reef. Turning to look, I was horrified to see that he’d removed his visor and was using its hard edge to hit the rock below the waterline. The water was splashing up into his face.
‘What are you doing?’ I cried. ‘Put that back on.’
Halley sat up again. ‘Anything in there?’ he called.
‘Nothing.’
‘Got no choice.’ He shrugged, looking at the sky, which had darkened incredibly quickly while we were underwater. ‘It’s loosening though, I don’t think it’ll take long.’
I looked at the sky too. There was no sign of any dragomansk. We were closer to land now though, so closer to danger.
‘Do you want me to get out again?’
‘No,’ he called. ‘When this rock breaks, it’ll shoot backwards. Someone needs to stay inside and steer, we can’t swim in all this kit.’
I primed my sauroter and stood up in the cabin to keep him covered. It was strange, with all the technology we were used to, here was Halley, bashing about in the sea with a makeshift axe. The sound of the splashing blows mixed with his curses
. I could see how frustrated he was getting as his gloves slipped and he struggled with the wet visor. He removed the gloves and threw them on to the front of the vehicle. I stretched over and rescued them before they fell into the sea. The sky was still clear of enemies but to make everything worse, it had started to rain. The sea was cold and choppy and I had to concentrate on keeping the rear of the vehicle steady. I hoped the rock would break soon.
‘Ow!’ Shaking his hand, Halley squirmed in pain.
‘Are you all right?’
He smiled half-heartedly back at me, sucking his finger. ‘Won’t be long.’ Crouching again, he took a few swings then stopped to reassess the situation. Without saying a word, he whipped off his hood and began wrapping it around the visor.
‘Halley, put that back on!’
‘Only for a second,’ he called, not looking at me. ‘I just can’t get a grip on this thing. And if it would just stop raining here all the time, that’d help.’
‘Do you want your gloves back?’
He shook his head, still absorbed in the task. This was incredibly dangerous and I kept on sweeping the skies with my sauroter.
Halley fell back. ‘Yeah, done it!’ he shouted.
Everything happened at once. The amphibical lurched back and crashed into the water. I had to drop the sauroter into the passenger seat before I could balance the vehicle. The alarm sounded on my tile. From the corner of my eye I saw a dark blotch appear in the sky in the swirl of grey clouds and grow as it headed for us.
‘Put your hood on. Dragomansk!’ I yelled.
He had already seen it and was on his feet but his hood and visor were gone. I could see them drifting away on the water to his right. He was already shooting at the creature as I reversed the vehicle, trying to get it level with the rock shelf so he could jump in. It was above Halley in seconds.
‘GET IN NOW!’ I screamed but it was impossible for Halley to turn his back on the humming beast. It flitted in the air just metres above his head, preparing to take aim, its jaws parting in a rictus grin. Halley’s shots had all gone wide. I joined in, but it was hard to aim when the amphibical was jolting about and each shot from my sauroter sent it wobbling even more. Under cover of my fire, Halley turned, but a bolt of brown filth shot from the gaping jaws, hitting Halley straight on the back of the head. He dropped down to his knees and in absolute terror I saw him put his hand to the back of his head and stare at the hissing wetness on his fingers. He screamed. Smoke rose in a halo around his head and I shrieked too, but the dragomansk was gearing up for another shot.
With one hand, I fired my sauroter. With the other, I somehow managed to catch hold of Halley’s shoulder and wrench him up over the side of the amphibical so he tumbled bloody head first into the footwell. My shot had gone wide but with Halley inside I could command the roof to close. With forensic precision, the dragomansk shot at the impenetrable roof, covering the screen with the poisonous, bubbling acid.
‘Halley, Halley!’ I shook him. The back of his head was an indescribable mess. I removed the canister of neutralising powder from my belt and sprayed it over him. He was twitching and groaning. Crouching beside him, I tried lifting his head very gently to look at his face. His eyes had rolled back in his head and although he was still breathing, he was out cold.
I backed the amphibical away from the rock shelf. The dragomansk was still firing, coating the whole craft in so much sticky glue, I could feel it beginning to weigh us down in the water. If this continued, I realised, we might sink. I didn’t know how to dive so I just kept reversing as quickly as I could. I activated the old front roll-cleaner but a third of the way down the front window panel, it jammed in the brown mess. I tried it again but it was stuck fast. Now I was left with a much-reduced view of the outside and for all I knew, I could be reversing into anything, even another part of the reef. The dragomansk was still attacking us, flitting here and there, its course impossible to predict.
I hadn’t tried to use the Barroblaster myself before but it used very simple holographic sights and was activated by one big stupid-looking button to the right of the steering zone. There was no safety mechanism to tell you how far back you had to be from the target so I simply had to guess. Aiming was going to be difficult with only a small rectangle to see through, which was covered in rain. I knew I had just one shot left before my view was completely obliterated. With clammy, shaking hands, I activated the sights and the luminous green tunnel appeared which I adjusted to contain it within the clear part of the window. At some point, the dragomansk had to fly into the centre of my sights, but I must wait for that to happen and the longer I waited, the more I could feel the acid goo striking the craft and the more I could feel us sinking.
‘Come on, come on,’ I said through gritted teeth. For all I knew, Halley was dying in the footwell, curled up in a foetal position. If the dragomansk took much longer, we’d both be dead and at the bottom of the sea.
My finger on the button was shaking. Then through the tiny area of window, the dragomansk shot sideways into view. It was there ahead of me, staring at me with its enormous compound eyes and for a moment, squinting through the rain, I could see what it saw, the reflection of our amphibical. I even thought I could see myself, a tiny pale face staring out of a small dark rectangle, reflected a myriad times in their glassy surface … before I pressed the button.
The blue beam shot from the front of the craft and encased the creature. I watched in awful exhilaration as it flattened to an ellipse. When the beam shut off, the ellipse exploded on either side in vile plumes of goo. I reversed again as quickly as I could, which wasn’t very quickly now, and spun my hand in the steering zone to turn us around. I had to get us away from the acid slick coating the water, but more than anything else I had to get Halley medical help.
‘Captain Calamus, please, how is he?’ The Captain walked down the corridor without stopping to acknowledge me and I had to run after her. When she did slow down and turn, she wouldn’t meet my eye.
‘Dying a slow and unpleasant death,’ she said. ‘Doctor Carter is doing his best for him. He hasn’t regained consciousness, which is probably a blessing. Where the acid has eaten away the flesh, it has allowed poison to be delivered straight to his nervous system. At present, nothing can be done to save him.’
She was rubbing her forehead distractedly. ‘Irresponsible.’ She was only just managing to control her temper. ‘Wasteful disregard for life. Never has such an incident happened on one of my missions and you are both wholly responsible. When Halley dies, you alone must answer for what the pair of you were doing in the middle of the sea in a remote location, in a decommissioned vehicle and disregarding the most basic safety requirements.’ By the end of this speech she was visibly shaking.
It wasn’t the moment to try and explain and I knew it couldn’t be justified. I was broken by the news about Halley. It didn’t seem real. I felt sick and light-headed.
‘Can I see him?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Please…’
‘Halley has one chance, but it’s a very slim one,’ she continued in the same angry tone. ‘I know all about the celephet and your opposition to it. If you agree to Doctor Carter’s fitting it again, if we finally discover the genetic code of the dragomansk it may be possible to create an antidote that could save your friend. We have the technology to make one quickly, but only if we get that code.’
‘Captain Calamus.’ I was trembling. ‘The celephet won’t work, you have to believe me.’
She waved her hand dismissively, nearly striking me, and strode off. I called after her but she didn’t reply. I was left on my own in the empty corridor. For one paranoid moment, I wondered if the whole horrible episode was yet another of Carter’s plans to try and get me to wear the celephet; then I remembered the excruciating agony on Halley’s face as I pulled him into the cabin and the sight of him curled up in the footwell with the back of his head in such a mess and I hated myself. In the room behind me Doc Carter
was trying to save his life and what was I doing?
If I’d honestly believed that wearing the celephet could have helped, I might have agreed to it, but I knew with absolute certainty that it was at best futile. There was only one chance to save Halley and to quote the Captain, it was a very slim one. While everyone was busy trying to save his life, I would slip back to the Museum.
Nothing had changed since the first day Halley and I set foot in the hall of statues because no one ever went there. I crept in like a fugitive. I was about to ask the unthinkable. In the fossil room, I began by clearing away the crinoid circle on the floor, stacking the fossils neatly against the wall. The circle had been my construct, now it felt like my intrusion. The Museum wasn’t mine and I wanted to show some respect. There wasn’t much time though, I had to ask what I had come to ask.
I turned off my tile and stood in the near total darkness with only the smallest light stealing in through the open doorway behind me. I knew some of our poems off by heart. I recited them. The room was so very dark, it was easy to imagine faces, shapes that moved. I finished.
‘Jonah?’ I said. ‘I’m going to choose to believe you can hear me because I’m too scared to believe you can’t. I’ve come to ask you something, but it’s not on behalf of my people, it’s for me. My friend is dying…’ I had to gulp back the tears because it wasn’t time to break down yet, there was still this great request I had to make.
‘Jonah?’ I continued. ‘My friend is dying because he was attacked by the dragomansk. All that might save him now is … is…’
